Ed Miliband to acknowledge Labour’s former stance on Palestine fell short

Foreign secretary will tell party’s conference ‘we are not here to accept the status quo but to change it’

Ed Miliband will tell campaigners and party members who raised the plight of Palestinians they were right that Labour’s approach had not been enough, saying he was heeding the calls of millions of people by imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements.

The foreign secretary will tell the Labour party conference that the government will take more explicitly progressive foreign policy positions under Andy Burnham, and that the UK will be a leader among like-minded countries in a new age of diplomacy.

He will say there is a “fundamental and wider lesson from Israel and Palestine about how we have changed our approach as a party”, saying Labour will succeed “because of, not in spite of, our progressive values”.

He will talk of the start of a new and more muscular foreign policy. “We are not here to accept the status quo but to change it at home and abroad,” he will say.